


Absinthe of Malice

by AnonEhouse



Series: Tiny Tony 'verse [16]
Category: Iron Man (Comic), Iron Man (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-29
Updated: 2012-03-29
Packaged: 2017-11-02 16:12:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/370898
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnonEhouse/pseuds/AnonEhouse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony will be nineteen. Tony is seeing the sights. Tony is being seen, and perhaps just a little obscene.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Absinthe of Malice

**Author's Note:**

> Not sure how it happened, but now Tony is ending the story at the given age, instead of starting it. Not that it really matters.

(If you are reading this on any PAY site this is a STOLEN WORK, the author has NOT Given Permission for it to be here. If you're paying to read it, you're being cheated too because you can read it on Archiveofourown for FREE.)

Tony gets restless, he always has. He goes across the Channel the day after he finishes his 'masterpiece', a small iron gate composed of jet planes and spiraling contrails. Doves and ivy vines aren't his style. Aengus promises to hang the gate where people will see it. Tony is pleased about that, but after a year of semi-behaving himself, he wants a change of pace.

Paris should be different. He's over eighteen, his goatee is no longer laughable, and while working at the forge hasn't made him tall, it's given him a nicely defined chest and arms that girls like to look at.

***

Tony has wine in a little open-air cafe within view of the Eiffel Tower. He admires it as a feat of engineering even more than he thought he would, now that he has an intimate acquaintance with wrought iron. It amazes him that such a prosaic material has resulted in something so beautiful. He digs out his Useful Phrase book after several glasses of wine and attempts to explain to the waiter how great and intimate his love is for the Tower.

The waiter seems confused. Perhaps Tony has not made himself clear. This is, after all, the sixth cafe he has visited in his attempt to educate his palate, and it seems to have made his tongue thicker. Tony gets to his feet, and uses his hands for emphasis, picking out bits of phrases from the book.

The waiter seems to be getting with the program as he starts talking rapidly and using his hands, too. Other people join in. Tony climbs up on the little table that had held his wine glass collection and expounds poetically on his great and wide and absolutely enormous love for the Tower of Eiffel and...

Somewhere along the way there is a loud whistle and several people in uniforms grab Tony's arms.

***

Tony looks around the room. It's rather dimly lit, has peeling paint, and a strong odor of disinfectant covering what a perfumer would call 'notes' of assorted effluvia. It's also quite well populated by assorted Frenchmen dressed in styles he can only think of as 'European urban decay'. He beams and spreads his arms wide. "I'm in a French hoosegow! Dad would be so proud!"

"You are an American, monsieur?" One of the men asks. He looks slightly drunk, but Tony is in a charitable mood, so he doesn't mention it.

"Wait." Tony pages through his book, peering at the tiny print. "Oui!" He grins. "But note! I am not an ugly American!"

There is muttering around the room. Tony sees a space on one of the wooden benches against a wall, and claims it. He leans over in confidence to speak to the man next to him. "A spy once told me I was cute. You can't be ugly and cute at the same time, can you?" He thinks a moment. "Well, yes. I suppose if you're like... a bulldog puppy. Which I'm not."

The man who first spoke to Tony moves closer. "Monsieur is drunk."

Tony's feelings are hurt. "The wine was so beautiful! The Eiffel Tower was there! I had to drink to it." Tony gets his book out again and looks for the phrases he used before. "I love the Eiffel Tower! Enormously!"

The man blinks. "Does Monsieur realize that he has said he wishes to make love to the Eiffel Tower?"

Tony looks suspiciously at his phrase book. "Oh. No, actually, I hadn't set my sights that high." He looks around at the men, who are all now staring at him in fascination. Admiring him, no doubt. "I wanted to meet the dancers at the Moulin Rouge."

***

After Tony uses several traveler's checks to pay the fines for everyone in the holding cell, they all go to the Moulin Rouge. Tony has a wonderful time. Can-can dancers are amazingly flexible, he discovers.

In the following year Tony falls in love with Paris, and with a dozen women, singly, in pairs, and one memorable trio of tall blondes. He learns to speak French, and how to wear clothes with style. He also learns how to lose at backgammon, baccarat, and roulette. The day he learns how to shimmy down a drainpipe because one of the women he loves turns out to be married to a man who is quite possibly a member of the Sûreté, judging by the things he shouts while Tony is making a strategic retreat, he decides he should see a few other countries besides France.


End file.
